Yes. I am indeed singing the title of this post to a Lionel Richie original.
It is sad to learn, as if we didn't see it coming, that the local government will have to resort to a furlough processes due to a reduced budget for this year. Has it run out of other means and ways to keep its personnel? Perhaps this could be beneficial to reduce some redundancy in the local government offices, if there's any. However, to keep the community "stimulated" we need spenders right?
Austerity Fridays doesn't work anymore? What can the government do to live by the budget this year?
You tell me....
Story about the furlough is here.
30 comments:
Slash the size of the government! Get jobs in the private sector!
Or the non-profit sector.
;)
Ditto Angelo's comment and add a part time or unpaid legislature.
Why is it personnel that must go, rather than vehicles, equipment, amenities, travel, and other various expenditures? If the overall cost of salaries must be reduced, why not reduce everyone's across the board, rather than throw some people out of work altogether?
I suspect "furloughs" are being used to create political pressure for some modification of the budget, making the "furlough-ees" pawns in a political game.
Why should PSS teachers take a cut in pay when there are people working in government who don't even know how to use email?
Hard as it may be for some of us denizens of the blogosphere to believe, there is in fact a wide variety of useful human activity that does not require the use or knowledge of e-mail.
The reason they can't or won't cut out travel, vehicles, or other perks is because they are all for the uppercrust who also won't be furloughed anyway.
It's obvious that the workers being furloughed (if it really happens) are part of an election year game.
Amazing to me that the Gov. is the one who supplied the figures for the budget, the legislature wrote up a budget, yet the Gov. acts as if they took money away!!! Hello! Did the Gov. just meet Inos?
"Hard as it may be for some of us denizens of the blogosphere to believe, there is in fact a wide variety of useful human activity that does not require the use or knowledge of e-mail."
okay, other than bush cutting?
With the upcoming exodus of non-US citizens because of the federal takeover, there will plenty of jobs in the private sector.
To mention two examples of the Legislature's wisdom in "improving" the budget as submitted:
1) Large increase in Legislature's budget.
2) No funding for CNMI Immigration after June 1, 2009. So what happens when DHS extends F-Day until November 28th?
Does the government of the CNMI really have 29 paid Congresspersons with only 10k voters?
We also have 4 mayors!
And municipal councils on three islands!
My home town has an unpaid mayor, so no one cares if he screws around and attends ribbon cutting shows cause most don't want the job. It is generally an old fat retired guy that doesn't like golf, which makes me almost qualified.
Will mayors and muny councils face austerity measures?
ps Or, what could we do to oust them first?
ps Not only will there be more jobs, the value of a US citizen (or permanent resident) will rise substantially.
dont forgets those goverment friends traveled around the islands wit you angelo. our brothers and sister assist manamko and assists abused family. why not libary an bilingual. who next week? or the weeks after? cut lease cars travels celphone radio first off. an i dont work for goverment.
Personnel is the biggest expenditure in the budget. It doesn't make any sense to reduce productive people's wages, as Cactus suggests we do. Go to any government office, and you will likely see many more people there than are necessary. Check the government payrolls in Rota and Tinian and see how many people are actually drawing salaries for "no-show" jobs. It's high time the government downsized.
There are hundreds of people doing good work for the government. Unfortunately, there are also hundreds who are not.
Maybe thousands...!!!
I don't have to work or worry about furloughs. I'm in the Civil Service and there are two thousand plus of us!!!! You can't get rid of me as none of the appointed department heads have any idea on how to push me out the door. Gravy train ha ha ha ha! However, I am worrying about my retirement fund.
There is an easy way to push civil servants out of the door and that is by not paying them.
The retirement fund can be blamed on every member of this administration and legislature. They paid themselves and hired relatives while the retirement fund burned.
Everything put out regarding this issue by the Guv's office seems designed to incite confusion and fear. They continue to link the furlough/layoff/shutdown issue to the recently passed budget, but they are actually distinct issues with different causes and consequences. The Guv'nah appears to be pushing the idea that furloughs and layoffs wouldn't be an issue had the latest budget incorporated his 'austerity' measures, which have already proven ineffective.
It's nice that the House and Senate got a budget passed, but they continue to sow much confusion as well. They continue to allege that the Guv'nah negated his own austerity measures by hiring 400+ post freeze civil servants, and that he in fact continues to to so. Who are these mysterious hirees? What positions have they occupied?
Yeah, and Charles Reyes just got a raise. No increase for me in 9 years. Plenty children to support.
Jack Villagomez
Ben Seman
It is finally dawning on people that the government employment system and retirement plan are unsustainable!
They are one great Ponzi scheme, built on the backs of the contract workers and current government workers with less than 15 years service -- to benefit current retirees.
All the lawsuits in the world can't save gov't employment and the NMIRF!
This was a gold-plated luxurious retirement system based on greed -- more generous than the U.S. military. But unlike the veteran retirees, NMIRF members make up far more than the tiny fraction of the relevant workforce that military retirees are, and the CNMI can't print money.
Bill Stuart likes to moan about the impending collapse of his pension, but he knew full well going in what a scam it all was. Thank you, Jess P. Mafnas, after whom the Legislature building is named! How fitting.
I challenge you to find a retirement plan more generous than the NMIRF. They are few and far between.
Once the NMIRF files bankruptcy, the court can modify pensions to a reasaonable 1% per year of service -- without the five-year “bonus”, instead of the extraordinarily generous 2-1/2 %. Even a CNMI Constitutional amendment cannot repeal the laws of supply and demand, as all our land claimants, judgment debtors, and lawyers will soon learn.
Contract workers aren't the only people who should be looking for off-island jobs. That goes double for goverment workers! And our current retirees had better get busy making 40 quarters (10 years) of earnings covered by Social Security so they will have something when they can no longer work at all.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CARMEN FERNANDEZ
November 13, 2002 KUAM
O’Brien fills the position left vacant by senator-select Dr. Carmen
Fernandez. Fernandez was the VP of Administration and Finance when a recent audit released by the
Guam Office of the Public Auditor revealed that during FY2000 through the end of September 2001.
UOG's finances were in a number of instances, found to have been managed poorly.
It appears that the revolving door of employees seeing their way out of Senator Carmen Fernandez's
office continues to spin as an eleventh employee has called it quits. Legislative assistant Michelle
Harris submitted her resignation this morning.
Harris says the senator required a doctor's note
from her in order to care for her son who has been diagnosed with pneumonia, a demand that Harris
describes as “immature.” While the incident isn't the only reason why she has left the office,
Harris adds that with the senator's role as the chairperson for the Committee on Education, she felt
Fernandez hasn't showed any movement toward anything that truly benefits children.
KUAM News
contacted the senator for comment, however our calls were unreturned.
http://www.ku
am.com/news/7832.aspx
As the workload for Senator Carmen Fernandez increases, her staff
numbers continue to drop. The most recent resignation of policy analyst Mark Duarte would mark the
twelfth employee to have walked out of the office, reducing her staff size to three.
“In the
meantime, I'm working on some staff hirings and those are still being worked on right now for the
moment we have three people on staff and we're looking at bringing at least two more on staff,”
said the freshman senator.
Fernandez argues that the number of employees who have left her office
is not twelve; however she did not provide documentation proving otherwise. Meanwhile, she says
Duarte's departure was planned from the beginning. The former policy analyst will now be pursuing
law school.
February 25, 2005 - After being a one term senator in Guam transferring tax payer funds to pay
for a new job for yourself? Seems a little unethical.
Former senator Carmen Fernandez has still
not responded to KUAM's request for comment on the use of her lapsed funds. As reported, at the end
of her term former senator Fernandez transferred nearly $12,000 to Senator Frank Aguon, Jr.
According to Senator Aguon, Fernandez later asked him for a job, and when he declined, asked if the
funds could be transferred to any other senator who might hire her.
Senator Rory Respicio hired
Fernandez for most of the month of January and she was paid $5,000, according to the Legislature's
Accounting Department. On Wednesday Senator Aguon transferred $15,000 to Senator Respicio, however
both senators deny the money is connected to the nearly-$12,000 in lapsed funds given to Aguon by
Fernandez.
CARMEN FERNANDEZ IS BUSY SUCKING AND FUCKING TO KEEP HERSELF AT THE TOP AND IS DOING POLITICAL HIRES AT NMC SO TYPICAL OF THIS WITCH. ASK ALL NMC INTERVIEW COMITTEE WHO THEY SELECT AND IT IS NOT THE SAME AS CARMEN WHO PICK FAVORITES AND WHO CAN GIVE HER POWER TO STAY IN OFFICE.
NOW CHARLES CEPEDA IS ONE WHO IS IN QUESTIONED BECAUSE HIS SUPPORTED CARMEN NOW BUT NOT BEFORE AND IT IS A RUMOR THAT A NMC STUDENT FILE A GREIVANCE AGAINST CHARLES. DOES THIS GUY HAVE A DEGREE TO BE CHAIRMAN OF BOARD OF REGENT OR IS HE THERE TO SHOW OFF. CAN YOU TELL US CHARLIE BOY.
Why can't we all just stay on topic?
Yes, leave our dear president of NMC out of this! Carmen Fernandez is the best president ever.
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